Musée D'Orsay

The most famous museum in Paris, after Musée du Louvre, is Musée D'Orsay. It is one of the city art treasures with more than 4 thousand art pieces.

The art in Paris is divided into three museums. Louvre keeps art since the Ancient Age (Greek, Egyptian and Roman) to the Renaissance. D'Orsay has art from the 1820's to the 1920's. And Centre Pompidou has art from the 1940's to nowadays.

D'Orsay has one of the biggest modern art collection in the world, with a very rich impressionist style. The museum keeps pieces from famous artists such as Van Gogh and Rodin.

It has two main floors with art expositions. The ground floor if fulled with modern sculptures in the center and rooms with paintings surrounding it. The second floor is a mezanine, with some sculptures and many rooms with paintings and some sculptures as well. There are also furniture and photographies exposed in the museum. Very intresting.

History

Besides the art exposed, the Museum is an art piece itself. It used to be an important train station in the city during the 19th century, that connected Paris to Orleans.

It was also an official building, known as Palais D'Orsay where political offices would work. During the second world war the train station closed and it became a post office.

Only in the 1970's the place became a museum.

You can still see vestiges of this history inside the museum. The architecture really resembles a train station, with a main entrance and a hall that looks like a ticket office. Also, the main floor looks like a railway.

The most famous element of D'Orsay, though, is the clock that exists since the 19th century. It is made of wood and painted with gold. An art piece.

D'Orsay and the clock's history is remembered in the kids movie "Hugo Cabret", that tells the story of a kid that used to live in the train station.

Visits

The museum is open for visits from tuesday to sunday from 9:30 am to 6 pm. The tickets cost 12 euros for general entrance, but if you get there after 4:30 pm you can have a 3 euros discount. Also, if you are under 25 years old and live or study in the European Union you don't need to pay at all.

Location

It is located in the 7th arrondissement in Paris, on the left side of the Seine river. You can get there by subway or train. The closest stations are Musée D'Orsay (RER C) and Assemblée Nationale or Solferino (line 12).

You can also get there by foot if you're in the attraction nearby just like Palais des Invalides, Mussée du Louvre, Jardins des Tuleries, Musée d l'Orangerie, Place de la Concorde or even Champs-Elyseés if you feel like walking. I really recommend walking around in Paris - it is the best way to get to know the city and see its charm in every corner.

Musée D'Orsay is right on the margins of the Seine River and it is a great place for having a walk and admiring Paris. I'm sure you'll love it.

If you're in Paris, don't miss Musée D'Orsay!

When I was being interviewed for the Erasmus + program, the first question I was asked was: "Why do you wanna go to Paris? ". At that exact moment, a non-ending list of things popped into my head, leaving me nowhere to begin. "Because Paris is world-famous", "Because the architecture is unique", "Because it is the city of love" and... well because of its history and art. I was 21 and feeling confused and overwhelmed by life happenings at the same time. As cliché as it may sound, I was looking for a place where I could find inner peace, happiness, and nurriture for my soul. And what a better place to start than Paris?

The Musée d'Orsay

This museum was my first stop in Paris. Through the years, my love for artists such as Monet and Van Gogh only grew fonder. I always loved studying their lives, their works, trying to understand what brought them to every single painting. When I look into their "chefs- d'œuvre" I feel peace and serenity. I feel real emotions, and that's one of the many reasons why I love art.

Here's a non exhaustive list of reasons why you should visit the Musée d'Orsay, art-lover or not.

• Its architecture is breathtaking. Did you know it used to be a railway station?
• It's highly instagrammable. But please, don't do it only for the gram!
• There are famous and historical paintings such as the two "Woman with a parasol" by Monet and Van Gogh's self portrait.
• There's a beautiful huge clock up to the last floor that also serves as window
• For the terrace-with-a-view
• It is free if you're under 26 and a UE long-term resident or citizen

More than Monet

Monet has that "Mona Lisa" effect in the Musée d'Orsay. You'll see every tourist taking pictures of Monet's paintings. Who doesn't love Monet? But the museum is home to a lot of beautiful other paintings. It is here that you can find the famous ballerinas of Degas, the Lunch on the grass by Manet and the absolutely eye-catching dance at Le moulin de la Galette by Renoir. The use of the colours, the light that they were able to create out of nothing in the paintings, the details, the perspective are absolutely amazing. If you look long enough at some of these works, you begin to merge with the characters.

So...

Whether you're visiting Paris for a short or long stay, you can't miss this gem. It is only up to you to discover!

For my creative development and growth I need to see, experience and know as many creations as I can.

My Erasmus mobility in Saarbrucken offered me the opportunity to reach other artistic and cultural cities easily I can say. One of those big important cities when it cames to art and culture is Paris, which is 5 hours away from Saarbrucken with a FlixBus drive. There are also faster trains that go to Paris, but usually the cost is higher.

Among the museums that I got to visit in Paris, Musee d’Orsay is one of them and it was on my go to list for a very long time, more precisly since I started studying art history, painting and photography. It’s totally true that one is to see photos in books or on internet of the artworks and other is to see the paintings, sculptures, buildings with your own eyes.

A railway station transformed into an art museum

The building of the museum is in itself a piece of architecture that must be discovered and admired.

Originally, the building was at once a railway station inaugurated in 1900 and it allowed travellers of all southwest of France to reach the capital. But, slowly with the modernisation of trains, the station was abandoned and in 1977 the French goverment decided to transform the construction into a museum. So, in 1986 it came to life the Musée d'Orsay ( I took the historical information that you just read from the museum’s map and brochure. )

When I entered the main part of the museum I was overhelmed by it’s greatness and very well preservation of the architectural details especially in the semicircular wide ceilling. Everything looked new, it seemed like the construction of the building was just finished yesterday.

Where is located, how much it cost, when is closed?

The museum is located on the left bank of the Seine on Rue de Lille. If you are visiting this area closer to it you will find on the other bank of the river Place de la Concorde and Jardin des Tuileries with two important museums Musee de l’Orangerie and Jeu de Paume. The two metro stations which are near are called Assemblee Nationale and Solferino.

If you are a student or below the age 26 then the entrance is free. Otherwise, the full price of one ticket is 14 euros. (Kind of expensive, in my opinion, but worth it!)

I didn’t had to stay in line to buy a ticket I just showed them my id and they let me in.

Pay attention that the museum is closed on Monday but open in the rest of the week from 9.30 until 18.00 and on Thursday you can visit it until 21.45.

What is to see?

On museum’s walls are displayed paintings or drawings from various well-known artists who contributed to the development of modernism. They are representatives of the significant artistic movements such as realism, impressionism, postimpressionism, neo-impressionism, symbolism.

Is this museum for everbody’s taste?

When it comes to the artworks I can say that Musee d’Orsay has quite a big diversity of creations.

Here I saw paintings, sculptures, photograhps, drawings starting with the middle of the 19th century and ending with the begining of the 20th century, more precisly with the year of 1914 which marks the start of the World War I and the succesion of the 2nd Republic of France.

So, in the 5 levels that the museum has I think that every visitor can get to enjoy some works from the so many displayed.

Level 0 opens up with the Allee Centrale des sculptures from which you can go left or right to enter the different galleries, rooms and temporare exhibitions. Because the ceiling is made out of glass, this main alley has a bright and clean vibe which makes it look endless. So, visitors are given plenty of space to see the sculptures or to rest on one of the many benches.

On this floor I saw paintings belonging to famous painters like Cezanne, Monet, Manet, Daumier, Millet, Toulouse-Lautrec or Courbet whose enormous paintings like as “Burial at Ornans” or “Painter’s” studio impressed not just me but the people around me too.

On the Alle Centrale there are sculptures from the period of 1850-1880.

Henri de Touluose Lautrec with his work "The bed" or "Le lit" in french made me stare at it for a long time because is a very beautifully made paintingi regards to colors, the texture of the brush strokes, figure's drawing, atmosphere or subject matter. The image gave me a warm feeling and also a painting and composition lesson.

On level 2 I found what I wanted to see the most: paintings belonging to Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.

There are two rooms dedicated their works, 57 and 58.

I stayed here a lot of time even if in Van Gogh’s room there were so many people who were taking photos of his paintings mostly of his vey famous "Autoportrait", who became a cover from the movie "Loving Vincent".

I wanted to look carefully and closely to the visible brush strokes and beautiful details but it was really impossible. People were not pay attention to the painting, they just wanted to take a photo or a selfie with Van Gogh’s autoportrait and their behavior pissed me off so much.

Luckly, most of them were all about this painting, so I could look much better at the others.

"The church at Auvers " is one of my favorite paintings by Vincent and here I got the chance to see it from up close in all of its details and beauty. Van Gogh’s brush work is powerful, it leads you to his movements until you enter in his world and feelings.

After Vincent’s paintings, Paul Gauguin’s artworks drove me to a different kind of world which he actually discovered while traveling to same of the Pacific Islands, one of it being named Tahiti.

His works contain the atmosphere of a misterious place less unkown at that time. The image bears you into tropical locations filled with colorful various shapes depicting people and nature.

The last floor of the museum includes representative works of impressionism and neo-impressionism. Among the artists whose works are exhibited I found Cezanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Signac, Pissaro, Renoir, Sisley, Seurat, Signac.

According to my taste, the most striking paintings here are belonging to Monet, Renoir, Manet and, of course, Edgar Degas.

Monet’s serie of Cathedral Rouen felt to me like a lesson about the harmony of colors and the painting depicting Saint Lazare railway station reminded me of my first day in Paris when I arrived at the same station, but in another times.

Renoir’s colors and brush strokes are for sure pastel and delicate like porcelain. I knew about this fact since before but seeing the paintings convinced me even more.

Manet’s manifesto painting “Le déjeuner sur l’herbe” impressed me because I didn’t knew or forgot that the work is a large scale one.

With this work, Manet starts the modern area in painting making the transition between realism and impressionism with the way in which the subject is represented.

The scene seems to be an ordinary situation with two female and two make having a picnic until you notice that one of the women is nude. It is true that females nudes are illustrated everywhere throughout the history of art, but mostly they are figures from mythology or allegory, but the work created commotion at that time because the female is an anonymous normal women.

Edgar Degas's ballerinas are dynamic and full of life. Y ou can see them on a flat surface of a painting or you go around the sculptures and watch them from every angle.

Either way you choose, the ballerinas will engage you in their movement. Normally, I pay more attention to the paintings, but this time Degas's sculpture attracted me more and I guess that happened because they were there to tell me their dance stories. And even if they seem to be caught in time because of Degas's ability to shape and create the human figures as natural as possible, the viwer can anticipate ballerinas's next moves.

The last floor also offers a beautiful panoramic view over Paris: you can see the river Seine, Place de la Concorde or Jardin des Tuileries.

Here, another main attraction is a huge beautiful clock through which you can see the landscape I was just describing above.

Speaking of clocks I forgot to mention that if you are on level 0 on Alles des Sculptures your eyes will be caught very easily by a big golden clock.

His importance comes from the fact that the clock dates back to the 19th century and it was made at that time from wood covered after in gold.

To who I recommend this museum?

Going around Musee d'Orsay felt like an intensive art history lesson about the most significant changes that happened when it comes to artistic manifestations in the 19th century and the begining of the next one, the 20th.

If you are finding yourself being passionate about the beginnings of the modern art and especially french impressionism and neo-impressionism then Musee d'Orsay is a suitable place for that.

At the same time, if you don't know anything about art and maybe you are just getting started with your journey through the art world visiting this museum would be a nice and helpful beginning.